Physics of Project X meeting to probe lab's future research

A Project X poster for the Nov. 9-10 workshop.

A meeting focusing on a key element of Fermilab's proposed future physics program will take place Nov. 9-10.

The 4th Workshop on Physics with a High-Intensity Proton Source will serve as a chance for high-energy physics community members to discuss the evolution of Project X's proposed design. They will also discuss Fermilab's research program at the intensity frontier and the physics opportunities associated with the proposed project.

"We have some new ideas we're excited about," said Bob Tschirhart, Fermilab scientist and workshop co-organizer. "We need critical review from the community, a cold-eye, scientific review to validate that our optimism is sound."

Last week, the ICD-2 Research Program Task Force released a draft report on the potential physics experiments that could be done with Projext X based on a new conceptual design.

During a Project X collaboration meeting in September, collaborators discussed both the project's initial configuration design and a more recent significant modification to that design, ICD-2, which allows a more versatile physics program.

The new design of a high-power, low-energy, continuous-wave proton linac, followed by a pulsed linac or rapid cycling synchrotron, will offer excellent power and flexible timing of various secondary beams. These beams are best suited for rare-process and neutrino experiments, said Yoshi Kuno, Osaka University physics professor and workshop co-organizer.

Project X would also be a natural first step toward new, more powerful facilities at Fermilab, such as a neutrino factory or muon collider," said workshop chair Stan Wojcicki. To explore these possible relationships, a muon collider workshop will immediately follow the Project X workshop. Both groups can attend a joint session in the afternoon on Nov. 10.

At the November workshop, collaborators will produce a white paper summarizing discussions at the workshop about Project X and the laboratory's potential physics program.

The collaboration will seek technical advice on Project X's ICD-2 from the Accelerator Advisory Committee, which convenes a week later. Collaborators hope the project will receive CD-0 in 2010.

Even if you don't attend the workshop, you can help collaborators rename Project X. A list of previously suggested names is available here. Submit your suggestions via e-mail to Young-Kee Kim

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

Feature

FRA conducting director review

Fermi Research Alliance member Neal Lane will chair the committee.

Fermi Research Alliance, Fermilab's management organization, began a review of Fermilab Director Pier Oddone this week. This laboratory process takes place every five years to determine whether the director should continue in his position.

Neal Lane, member of the Fermi Research Alliance (FRA) Board of Directors and Malcolm Gillis University Professor at Rice University, will chair the committee.

The ad hoc FRA Committee will reach out to key stakeholders from the Department of Energy, Fermilab, Universities Research Association and the broader Fermilab High Energy Physics and national and international user communities throughout October for feedback about the director's performance in his first term. The committee will convene at Fermilab in mid-November to finalize its recommendations, which it will discuss at the FRA Board of Directors meeting in February 2010.

FRA committee members welcome confidential comments and feedback from the Fermilab and greater HEP community. Feedback can be sent via e-mail and will be treated in strict confidence for use solely by the committee (unless otherwise requested).

Precision measurement of top quark pair production

Four measurements of the top quark pair-production rate, and their combination, compared to theoretical predictions. The combined result is in good agreement with and has a smaller uncertainty than the predictions from theory.

The top quark is the most massive fundamental particle ever observed. It has about the same mass as the far-from-fundamental gold nucleus, which contains about 200 nucleons.

Since its discovery by the CDF and DZero experiments in 1995, physicists have studied the properties and interactions of the top quark in detail.

A pair of top quarks is produced only once approximately every seven minutes at the Tevatron's peak instantaneous luminosity. The massive top quarks then live for less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. The fireworks from their energetic decay products provide distinct experimental signatures. The signatures are a golden ticket to finding the rare top quark events among the 1.7 million collisions per second. The three characteristic signatures are all-hadronic (46 percent of decays) with six or more jets of hadrons, lepton+jets (45 percent) with an energetic lepton, neutrino, and four or more jets, and dilepton (11 percent) with two energetic leptons, two neutrinos, and two or more jets.

Scientists at CDF have measured the top quark pair production rate in all three signatures. The recent combination of these measurements has an overall precision of 6 percent and is in excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction. The consistency of the separate measurements indicates that there are no significant discrepancies in the rate of top quarks appearing in the different experimental signatures. This increases the confidence that the top quark is well understood. It also boosts confidence in the electroweak theory interpretation that the heavy top quark mass means the Higgs boson should be relatively light and, if it exists, could be within reach of the CDF and DZero experiments.

Chilean singer and guitarist will perform at lunch today

Nelson Sosa, a Chilean singer and guitar player, will perform at 11:45 a.m. Thursday in Ramsey Auditorium, followed by a raffle drawing, snacks and fruit-filled empanadas. Sosa's music is a mix of Latin rhythm, folk, tango and jazz.

After the performance, event organizers will hold a drawing from raffle tickets collected over the past month for prizes that include gift baskets, a Hispanic cookbook and CDs. Winners must be present in order to receive a prize. Thursday's event will be Fermilab's final event in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends Oct. 15.